Sunday, January 07, 2007

Thistle


Holiday Dinner: Group Photo
Originally uploaded by donXfive.
So, last night was the annual Chain Gang Holiday Party, with group photo as seen to the right. Great fun, we had it at Everybody's Cafe in Stroudsburg like last year, but started the night at Rich & Linda's for some hors d'oeuvres & cocktails. Highlight of the night was the gift exchange, since it involved the complication known as "stealing"...

Anyway, after that we went to Siamsa, the Irish pub up the street. First time I'd been there, and it was a bit of a let-down, since I'd heard good things about it. (Instead of being what I expected and would have liked, it was, in Doug's words, "like a bad Friends episode.") One Guinness and I grabbed a ride back to my car at Rich's. Early night actually, I was home by midnight.

Listening: Some words I never thought I'd hear on the radio: "and now for some Jacobite music." It was on Thistle, NPR's Gaelic-music show, and they were featuring some Scottish fiddler and music publisher from the early 1800's. He didn't publish any such tunes -- they were probably forbidden -- but the DJ played a few to give a sense of perspective. No offense, but it sounded pretty much like all the other stuff to me.

I heard that on the way to Round Valley, which is where I rode today. (Stay tuned for pictures.) I'm feeling a little stronger over there, but it's still an uphill battle to get back the fitness I once had, that made riding there more than just a hard-ass slog. I did feel good though that there was another group of riders out there, who started after I did but got ahead of me by taking the easier (and shorter) jeep roads, that I overtook and passed on the Tree Trimmer Bypass. Sorry dudes, maybe I ain't still got it, but that's home turf, don't ya know...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing the pix. It's nice you're finally in them and not just taking them. Who did wind up with the tire mirror?

Don said...

Ask your son!

Anonymous said...

Did he get it? He just emailed me that I should go to his site so I could view his pix from the party. Take a look, cuz you're in them. Geez, he never mentioned the tire mirror. This was a real "bike" Christmas for him and Lori; cuz, along with other gifts, we got them quite a few bike ornaments. And, since they didn't put up a tree, we got them a metal ornament display tree to put them on. Did you see any of them? Did you see the glass of beer ornament we got them? It's so cool! We got them miniature bike clocks, too. They should be about "biked out" by now.